MA.S ATTACK - 珍時怪異

MA.S ATTACK
珍時怪異
[MA.S ATTACK; 2009]
9.6









Not all doujin music is UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ. Not all doujin music is guitars and cliché metal riffs and the SSKKKKKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE that is in every Dragonforce song that minami has adopted from time to time. Not all doujin music has the prominent melody delivered by a vocalist (or a semi-realistic computer program). There are some out there that ignore the popular trends in the scene they have anchored themselves into and called their home. Upon listening to the opening track of 珍時怪異, MA.S ATTACK newcomer (or one-shot artist) ユタカナウシロ is already awkwardly out of place once you realize he’s in the same scene as circles such as the hard rock/heavy metal circles like CROW'SCLAW and IRON ATTACK!, the hardcore figureheads such as t+pazolite and REDALiCE, and the unbearably quirky IOSYS.

珍時怪異 is the very rare Touhou arrange album you might get two or three of released at Comiket that averts what everyone else is doing in such a drastic way you would be hesitant to lump together the aforementioned artists, or swear that ユタカナウシロ is from a different continent altogether. Ambient techno is already rare in the doujin scene, but to hear someone take a stab at the genre and make it so thick in texture is like witnessing a miracle of the universe. Take Spring Rain, for example. Ambient drones, the leading melody, glitch, various beats and breaks, and shit tons of other sounds that are along for the ride. It’s in the same realms as 青空の影へ, but contradicts the minimalist beauty of the opening track with the busyness of a well-oiled machine. 雲の閉ざせし路は has three or four different breakbeats at once molding together to create a single entity. 幽霊客船へようこそ has the busiest moments on the album with enough ambiance at once that could be separated to create two or three tracks. It appears so simple while being densely layered.

Even fans of more intense and faster music have something rejoice over. The chaotic dreamy glitch of エソテリア-prototype- proves to be on par in abrasiveness as some of the tracks you would find on PURE EXISTENCE and Speed Ball Z. After the last five tracks, ユタカナウシロ’s final track Rich Umbrella sucker punches you in the gut with harsh distorted bass and noisy synth melodies while still holding on tightly to the ambiance of previous tracks. The last two tracks are both arranges of Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship. モリタ’s helluva fun arrange contrasts with 幽霊客船へようこそ’s dub-inspired ambient with glitchy breaks and a clean piano providing the melody at a hurried pace, and NEET師匠’s resembles a mixture of the Sonic CD GST and the Reading Rainbow opening.

The production and mixing would make 95% of the circles out there embarrassed or envious of ユタカナウシロ. There is so much activity, but every little piece is audible and easy to find with a little focus. The layering of so many sounds waiting to be found is what makes this album so much damn fun to return to. If you treat the last two tracks as bonuses and don’t let it bother you that one song is arranged three times on the same album, this is about as close to a perfect Touhou arrange album can get. 珍時怪異 is a brilliant rarity, mixed and produced with the utmost love and care.

ALiCE'S EMOTION - RED

ALiCE’S EMOTION
RED (Disc C Hand-in-Hand)
[ALiCE’S EMOTION; 2010]
3.8

Photon Wave Orchestra - Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands EP

Photon Wave Orchestra
Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands EP
[Photon Wave Orchestra; 2010]
10.0








I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Photon Wave Orchestra were hunched over their instruments. Fred Zoidos slowly plays on his masterfully-crafted stradivarius whilst his younger sister, Robyn “Robbie” Smith sings, eyes closed, into her microphone like she was trying to kiss around a big nose. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Photon Wave Orchestra’s first release, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months. Sometimes an album is so good and makes its case so flawlessly that it spawns a mini-genre of its own and becomes shorthand for a prescribed set of values. The Velvet Underground's third and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew are two older records that spring to mind, and I'd toss in Spiderland as well. It's not a long list, but somewhere on it belongs Photon Wave Orchestra's Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands.

35 minutes of lush soundscapes entangle your senses, but not in a tight constriction, but a gentle caress, similar to that of a mother gently rocking her baby back and fourth, singing soft lullabies to calm the upset child until they fall into a state of slumber. An aural nirvana is opened up through seemingly simple drones. However, to output such sounds requires superhuman musicianship. The pitch-holding is unreal and far exceeds that by any person on earth, living or dead. It is an emotional, psychological experience. Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Fred and Robyn hated being Falling Rose and Dead Entry, and ended up with the most ideal, natural recording yet in the history of humanity. The track's final moments are a wash of humming synths, echoing moans, and pins-and-needles noise that comes just a little too close to human screaming. By the time the piece ends, the tide is way out.

Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands  still wields an uncanny, affirming power. It's the kind of music that makes you believe there is a Heaven, and that this is what it must sound like. The experience and emotions tied to listening to this extended play are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 35 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that two people created this, it's clear that Photon Wave Orchestra must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! People who show signs of doing what they condemn the world for not doing: changing, evolving, experimenting with new approaches, growing. And that's why Photon Wave Orchestra-- along with Jeremiah, Blaise Finnegan and every other prophet of doom-- might all turn out to be wrong. Perhaps it does get better before it gets worse. And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over. Photon Wave Orchestra tapped into the collective unconscious of those who grew up in the English speaking East and were talented enough to transcribe the soundtrack. No need to get hung up on specifics; however we lived and whoever we were, Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands reflected back the truth for a lot of us. You can't ask more of an album than that, and I don’t think we’ll see something like this ever again, and we will always return for what PWO’s EP debut alone can deliver. I realize that this is not a doujin album, but it needs to be heard. It needs to be recognized. It needs to be spread so as that it doesn’t fade away from our memories. Don’t let this treasure slip out of our hands. Clench it, and never let go.at this is what it must sound like. The experience and emotions tied to listening to this extended play are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 35 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that two people created this, it's clear that Photon Wave Orchestra must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! People who show signs of doing what they condemn the world for not doing: changing, evolving, experimenting with new approaches, growing. And that's why Photon Wave Orchestra-- along with Jeremiah, Blaise Finnegan and every other prophet of doom-- might all turn out to be wrong. Perhaps it does get better before it gets worse. And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over. Photon Wave Orchestra tapped into the collective unconscious of those who grew up in the English speaking East and were talented enough to transcribe the soundtrack. No need to get hung up on specifics; however we lived and whoever we were, Echoes Across the Astral Wastelands reflected back the truth for a lot of us. You can't ask more of an album than that, and I don’t think we’ll see something like this ever again, and we will always return for what PWO’s EP debut alone can deliver. I realize that this is not a doujin album, but it needs to be heard. It needs to be recognized. It needs to be spread so as that it doesn’t fade away from our memories. Don’t let this treasure slip out of our hands. Clench it, and never let go.

TatshMusicCircle - Far East of East III

TatshMusicCircle
Far East of East III
[TatshMusicCircle; 2010]
1.9






I did not get into IIDX music until shortly after RED AC came out. I didn’t give much of a crap for his music. I have never been big on GENOCIDE, and was lukewarm to Sphere. However, I, like many others, have left RED ZONE on repeat on my iTunes player. The two-word mantra SPEED RAVE made me take a liking to the idea of more Tatsh songs with a rock-meets-rave formula. I rode Gekkou off as a misfire, since Twelfth Style and Scripted Connection=> were cool, and even Xepher was decent if you ignore the hype. In DistorteD shit like DEEP ROAR turned its ugly head, and it doesn’t help that Double Loving Heart showed how inept he is (like almost every other Bemani artist or person on the planet) at J-Pop. However, we still had Kachoufusetsu and D.C. Fish so it wasn’t all bad in DD. Then, he vanished to pursue other interests, because apparently, making music for VNs that nobody has heard of and the doujin music market pays better or something.

Recently, he has returned in Resort Anthem. Now, I may not have heard to song, and I cannot find it anywhere, but on the chan's I was told it was more shit in similar vein to his Touhou arrangements, which must mean it’s tripe. I have heard WHITE MUTATION, which if it weren’t for Sampling Masters Mega, would have been a total waste of time bothering with. I have also heard the first Far East of East, which was crap, so I bailed out on the second. Judging from Far East of East III, I missed nothing skipping his arrange album from C77.

It follows the standard formula: Rock-meets-Eurobeat. Unfortunately, Tatsh shines far brighter with  techno, and can’t make good rock to save his life, and Eurobeat is a dead-end genre. That much has already damned FEoE3 to the point of beyond saving. As if the arrangements being the most boring shit on the Goddamn planet wasn’t bad enough, the tracks are mixed VERY VERY VERY poorly. Here’s a game for all of you people who have good headphones: Count how many times you hear static and tinniness at a fourth or fifth of your player’s maximum volume. It could be anywhere as high as a couple hundred times (the vocals of 涙のソリチュード and every other piano note in 蜃気楼) or a few times, with those few times consisting of prolonged periods of droning static (The eternity stay with and 哀、揺れて・・・). It’s generic, uninspired, lazy, one-bit rock and eurotrash arrangements playing over a wall of static. I guess you could say it was dirtied. With loudness.

Even if it wasn’t on the dark side of the Loudness Wars, TatshMusicCircle is still a bad circle. It shakes the senses as to how something can be boring and horrific at the same time. Even awful music isn’t dull because you are set back at the ineptitude of the people surrounding the project. TMC is unsalvageable and Far East of East III puts to rest any arguments saying otherwise.

Corky Voce - Ambient Dreamer

Corky Voce
Ambient Dreamer
[Corky Voce; 2009] 
7.6










Back when I listened to a huge pile of releases back in January 2010 from Comiket 77, Ambient Dreamer left a strong impression on me with some of the strongest tracks from the 600+ songs from the 100+ albums, EPs, singles, etc. I downloaded. The high points in Corky Voce’s debut release, I either forgot or, even worse, ignored the flaws that plague the album from being the best release from December 2009’s Comic Market.

Ambient Dreamer is an album that knows damn well what to do two-thirds the time, but is far too timid to carry it all the way each time or gets so caught up in what it’s doing that it goes overboard the other third. I’m going to hazard a guess that they like vocal manipulation software. Layered recordings (マトリョーシカ), echoes (Inner Heart), fidelity (楽園 -シントニック・コンマ-), a very-light pinch of the robot-voice effect that’s is on every other song in Daft Punk’s Discovery (practically every song), duets with second member Kei Fujiyama (Good Day), the list goes on. While Sayaka Horise does have a good mellow voice, the moment she makes her pitch higher is when everything falls apart.  If you have ever listened to Radiohead, you might have noticed that with each passing release, Thom Yorke sounds whinier and whinier to the point of annoyance. Now imagine that but higher pitched and more irritating.

That’s right. Sayaka Horise is trying to out-Thom Yorke Thom Yorke.

What genre is Ambient Dreamer? Hard to tell because they get around to various sounds, such as the paint-by-the-numbers J-Rock (いざない), post-hardcore (Ambient Dreamer), Hard Rock (マトリョーシカ), etc. This is no surprise to anyone who has known the groups past contributions and their flexibility.

The songs themselves range from great to mediocre, and the reasons behind it being mediocre make you sincerely wish it was crap. However, don’t fret because it's still one of the most solid releases from the 77th Comic Market. 風車 has a childish nostalgic feel to it and a solid musical transition. The piano melody of 楽園 -シントニック・コンマ- would fit perfectly at one of those retro soda shacks and is the one time that Horise’s high pitched squeals work and would blend into the song list of pop’n music perfectly. マトリョーシカ is my personal favorite track with a Barracuda-esque opening rhythm, a post-punk touch, and guitar solos that are just as catchy as the lyrics, and blueNote’s opening could very well be a darling homage to Endroll by Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. Despite the name, title track Ambient Dreamer doesn’t have even a shred of ambience in it, but has guitar work that sounds like a really clean Number Girl. Hell, Inner Heart sports more of a dreamy vibe by simply having a soft guitar with a bit of reverb.

It’s so weird to think that the songs that I’m practically tripping over myself to praise share the same compact disc as those that feel like B-Side material or have such a sudden change at the halfway point it will have you eyeballing your media player in amazement as the track number stays the same when it clearly is an entirely new song altogether. 蝶’s first third says “I’m easy-listening with a traditional Japanese influence”, while the other two-thirds sounds like BeForU if they were more intricate.  いざない displays the nadir of Horise’s vocal talents, and Good Day’s mellow stride is constantly interrupted by angst-stained squawks that should have been its own song.

I want to love everything about this album, but it has many missteps and songs that stick out like a sore thumb that would be suited for a more light-hearted release. It’s difficult to not be tsudere for Corky Voce’s debut. Instead of scrapping the laid-back records, we get these weird bipolar vocoded Frankensteins. Maybe next time Sayaka Hirose and Kei Fujiyama will learn to correct the mistakes made here and polish their strong suits. Looking over the flaws, what makes this album so strong is that it stands out from many other doujin releases by besting most circles in technical skill, production, and being damn catchy. Ambient Dreamer is a collection of songs with radio-appeal, which is surprising because so few circles lack such gusto to be talented and daring while still being accessible.